


the only cat who knows where it's at

by lady_ragnell



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Le Maître Chat ou Le Chat Botté | Master Cat; or Puss in Boots - Charles Perrault
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, Gen, MINOR HARM TO ANIMALS, Matchmaking, Post-Canon, Tricksters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 12:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18850993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: There are cats who are content to spend their lives dozing by the fire, but Puss has never been one of those cats.





	the only cat who knows where it's at

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamiflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/gifts).



> **Warnings:** to expand on the animal harm warning, the harm is not to Puss, it is Puss himself hunting as he does in the original tale, and mentions of using the furs. Also, brief mentions of eating people but not cannibalism.
> 
> The title, of course, is from the Aristocats' "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat." Oh, a rinky tinky tinky!

It is true that some cats are content to doze by the fire for their whole lives and never stray from the warmth, unless there's a particularly tasty mouse to chase.

It is also true that Puss is not one of those cats. He's cosseted and made much of by the Marquis of Carabas and his wife for his skills hunting and tricking, since the Marchioness of Carabas is not a foolish woman and could guess one day in that her husband doesn't know his way around his own supposed home or lands, much less how to rule them. Puss helps them, as it pleases him, and curls up by the fire when that pleases him, and even the king himself, stopping to see his daughter as frequently as any fond papa might, asks Puss for his counsel, though he'd be doing better for himself if he'd take it more often.

There are only so many mice in the ogre's old castle, and there comes a time when the Marquis and his wife will do as well with another cat, and then Puss puts on his old boots, picks up his old sack, and goes to his master. “My lord,” he says, with his grandest bow, “I think the time has come for me to leave you.”

“Must you, Puss? We always welcome your advice, and I'd hoped you'd be my children's companion the way you were mine growing up.”

“Well, I may be back someday. A warm hearth is nothing to turn my whiskers up at.” Puss allows himself to be embraced with all the grace he can. “Shouldn't others have some good fortune?”

“Of course they should. I only hope you have some yourself, as well.”

“A cat always lands on his feet,” Puss assures him, and leaves. Like all cats, he sees no need for drawn-out goodbyes, and the road is calling.

*

There's plenty of hunting to do on the road, with his bag slung over his shoulder, but the monotony of the road isn't much better than the monotony of the hearth, so it's not long before Puss looks around for occupation.

What he finds is a village some ways from the Marquis's lands and a girl weeping loud enough to be heard through her open window. Puss has met a cat or two who thinks weeping is a foolish way to go about things, but Puss doesn't mind it so much. It lets him know where to focus his nosiness.

In this case, he hops up to the window sill and comes in, to find a pretty maiden crying over her sewing. “It can't be as bad as that,” he says.

The sewing girl looks up, startled, and drops her needle into her lap. “Oh! Well, I wasn't expecting you.”

“You wouldn't have been. I stopped by on a whim.”

“Wasn't expecting you to talk, I mean,” she says, and then bites her lip. “Unless, uh, my lord, you're in the wrong form.”

“Hmph.” Puss sniffs, though he's mollified by the respect. “I am in precisely the form I mean to be in. Now, whatever's the matter?”

She has enough sense to mop her eyes, and even better sense to mop them on a scrap of muslin nearby and not on whatever project is in her lap. “It's silly,” she says.

“It's sillier to draw it out. I'm not without my resources to help.”

“With a lovelorn girl?” she parries. Puss considers liking her, though generally he prefers to know the natures of people he likes much more thoroughly. The Marquis might be a dreamy boy with more kindness than inheritance or sense, but Puss had known him since he was a child. This seamstress might kick cats, or keep birds. “Really, there's nothing to be done.”

“There's plenty to be done, by someone with the wit and the claws to do it. Now, what's your trouble? I'm a good hand with trouble, I promise you.”

The seamstress peers at him. “You wouldn't perchance be the reason that instead of having an ogre for a landlord, our neighbors down the king's road now have a boy who keeps forgetting to make them call him 'my lord' to rule over them, would you?”

Modesty is for dogs and heroes. Puss purrs his agreement. “You're clever to realize it. That makes me even more likely to help you. Now, is it love or money?”

“Both,” she says, and then frowns. “I'm not going to go asking for favors, though. No matter what form you mean to be in, I know better than to ask a stranger for a favor.”

Caution is wise, but not much fun. The Marquis is too trusting to have ever considered Puss might have his own ends in mind, even if Puss really did mean him the best. “Ask? I'm offering. Now, tell me all about it.”

“There's a knight who recently took arms with our baron, and he's—well, he's pleasing to look at, and takes an interest in me, but he's young and a fourth son, and I have no dowry to bring but what I make sewing, so there's little hope for us.”

Puss considers the problem, but an arrangement for a distressed young lady seems like just what he went out into the wide world to do. He'll just have to see if this knight is worthy of her. “Well. Give me warmth and meat by your fire, and we'll see what we'll see,” says Puss, and after a moment, she dries the rest of her tears and nods her agreement.

*

The next day, the baron and his men ride through the town, greeting shopkeepers and laborers and women going to market. The baron's a younger man than many, with a good seat on his horse and an unfortunate chin, and rides easily ahead of men old enough to have served his father. He has five knights riding with him, and it's easy enough to see which one has caught the seamstress's fancy, because he's caught the fancy of every woman in town, from what Puss can see. He rides along winking at girls at the well and calling greetings to matrons with their shopping, and kisses the seamstress's hand, nearly falling out of his saddle, when he passes her.

He's handsome enough, as knights go, and charming enough too. Puss has little patience for flirtatious knights, but the seamstress heaves a great sigh when he leaves the town square and, when they're back in her little house, says “That was him.”

She's a sweet girl, with more sense than her taste in knights would suggest, and she puts out some meat for him while he considers the problem and decides just what to do about it.

“You just trust me and do as I ask, and you'll have a dowry and a good husband besides,” Puss finally says, and he allows her an enthusiastic hug before he squirms himself free.

There is work to be done, and no time for her human sentiment.

*

Puss puts on his boots and picks up his sack and sets out to find some quarry that will do the job he wants done. For the Marquis, fresh-caught game was the best gift possible. For a young seamstress already known to the man involved as anything but an heiress, Puss must change his strategy.

And besides, what cat has ever liked to solve a problem the same way twice?

Hunting, though, never grows dull, especially with Puss's own tricks, and he uses them, setting out bait and waiting for a brace of weasels to run into the sack. He deals with them in his own fashion, and brings the skins back to the seamstress.

“And what am I to do with these?” she asks, bemused. “And ought these skins already be so well-cured when I know you just went out hunting today?”

“Don't second-guess a gift and you'll get more of them,” says Puss. “There should be enough in there to sew into a cloak fit for a prince. Do it, and we'll see what we'll see.”

For a moment he thinks she's question it, and then she nods sharply and pulls out her needles, thicker ones that will do the job required. “Very well. I'll make it as fast as I can.”

*

“What are you doing with it?” she asks two days later, when it's done and her fingers are pricked from all the work, thimble or no.

Puss packs it away in his sack. It's pleasantly soft, and passably stately. A good gift indeed. “Why, if I give it to your knight to give it to his baron, his baron may be so pleased with the gracious gift that he awards him a purse, and there are your money troubles taken care of.”

She frowns, mistrustful. Much cleverer than the Marquis of Carabas, then, which is good for her and inconvenient for Puss. “Surely one cloak, no matter how pretty, wouldn't merit that much of a reward?”

“This is just the first step,” Puss assures her. “Trust me, and I'll make sure everything comes out to your advantage.”

The seamstress looks dubious, but she doesn't try to stop him going.

*

The knight, upon being addressed by a cat, peers around the room, peers into the bottom of his empty tankard of ale, and then peers back at Puss. “Are you actually there?”

“That's a foolish question,” Puss reproves.

“Are you a joke?”

“That's an even more foolish question.” Puss heaves his sack off his back. “You're a young knight. No doubt you'd like to improve your position. Let me help you with that.”

The knight is suspicious, and it's not even because he's smart, it's just because he's confused. The seamstress can't have had more than five minutes of conversation with him, if she still has any feeling for him at all. “What could a cat do to improve my position? Kill a large mouse?” He laughs at his own joke.

Puss could say a few choice words about ogres and a certain marquis, but this knight is not worth that trouble. Instead, he takes the cloak out of the bag. “My mistress sends this. She bids you give it to your lord, since it's a very rich gift, and might give you some favor in his eyes.”

The knight frowns at the cloak, eyes widening when he shakes it out and sees the whole thing, how beautifully it's stitched and lined. “And who's your mistress? Not that little seamstress in the village, who blushes so nicely? Sweet of her to think about my position. She's a sympathetic girl.”

“It doesn't matter. Just give the cloak to your lord, and we'll see what we shall see about it.”

*

The next time the baron and his knights ride through the town, the last knight is wearing a beautiful fur-lined cloak on a day just barely chilly enough to warrant it, flaunting it like a peacock. When someone calls out of the crowd asking about it, he crows that it was a special commission to keep him warm all winter.

“That's not right,” says the seamstress when he's passed her, with a lingering look and a press of her hand and no special words. “He looks well in the cloak, but you said it was a gift for him to give the baron, didn't you? That's no way to improve his position.”

Puss shrugs. “I give counsel. Nothing to me if people don't do as they ought. I told him to give it to his lord, but it seems he wanted to keep it.”

“How's he supposed to get the money to set up his own household, if he does such things?” she asks, troubled.

“Never you mind,” Puss says. “It will come out right. You still need a dowry, don't you?”

“But if _he's_ not trying—no, you're right. That's not to say I can't try. What will I do next?”

“Leave that to me, but have your needle at the ready,” Puss says, and goes out hunting again.

*

This time, he brings back rarer furs, pure white ermine he has to go through no little trouble to find when it's only autumn. The seamstress has set him a more interesting task than he chose for the miller's son—there, comeliness and an unclad dip in a lake did most of the work for him, but here, there's a bit more subtlety to worry about.

“What shall I make this time?” she asks when he brings her the riches. A dowry's worth of them, in fact, at least for the right girl.

“Another cloak, surely. He has one of his own, now. Surely he'll give this one to the baron.”

“Will he?” she asks, but she starts sewing nonetheless. “If I could sell this to the baron or a man like him outright,” she says as she's making her neat rows of stitches, “I'd have enough to set me up for a good long time, in a household with a good man. And I'm passing it on as a gift?”

She thinks like a cat, this one. “You don't trust your love to use it for both of your futures?”

The seamstress hesitates, thinking on the better. “I know him so little,” she admits. “The first one was supposed to lay a groundwork. Are you sure you told him what he should do?”

“I can talk. It's up to him to listen.”

*

While she's still sewing, Puss goes looking for the baron. “If you'll listen, I have a few interesting things to say,” he says.

The baron is a good deal smarter than his knight. He looks at Puss right away, and frowns at him, then nods slowly. “And what manner of interesting things are those?”

“One of your knights has not been behaving very honorably.”

The baron sighs. “And I think I know which one. What's he done, that a person like yourself would take an interest in the subject?”

“My mistress, hoping to start building herself up a dowry, passed on a cloak to him hoping it might be given as a gift to you and win your favor, but he's kept it, and given her no recompense at all.”

That makes the baron raise his eyebrows. “I know the cloak. He loves it dearly, but if she gave it as a gift without giving it to me in person, I don't know what can be done about it.”

“She's making another cloak, but she's a modest maiden, and not likely to give it to you herself. Isn't it troublesome if your knight doesn't give you things that are rightfully yours? Just look out and see if there's another cloak on his back not too long from now, and you'll know he's stealing your gifts.”

“Hmm.” The baron folds his hands. “And what's the deeper plan here, I wonder? I know how to listen for news from my neighbors and my liege lord. I think it's likely you're not telling me everything. Am I the butt of your joke?”

This one's even cleverer than the seamstress, which makes him difficult to manage but pleasant company. “No. If anyone is, it's your knight.”

A twitch of a smile. “I have seen him flirting with the girls in town. There's a seamstress who seems smitten, and who sews a neat seam. Perhaps I should ask for something, to ease some costs. The royal tailors might object, but they don't have to know.”

Perhaps not Puss's original plan, but not a bad one, either. “My mistress will be glad to see you, then.”

*

The baron arrives the very next day, when the seamstress has the cloak mantled over her lap, frowning as she makes sure every stitch of it is perfect. When the baron knocks on her door, she clutches it up against her chest and stares at him, and Puss takes himself to her back room to listen to the conversation.

“I need new sheets for my bed,” says the baron. “I hear you sew the neatest seam in this town. I have the measurements here, of what I need. Will you take the commission?”

She stammers a little, and then there's rustling, and when she actually answers, she's much more the sensible girl he knows. “Of course I will, my lord. Just tell me what fabric you wish and when you want them, and they'll be done.”

The baron laughs a little. “It might shock you to know that I don't know anything about fabric besides what's pretty or not, and what's warm or not. What do you recommend?”

The seamstress knows her cloth, and rattles off recommendations, telling him what she has and what she can buy and, scrupulously, what each would cost in cloth and in sewing. The baron engages the subject thoughtfully, and neither one ever mentions that by rights his steward or castellan ought to be making these arrangements.

“That's beautiful, what you're working on,” he says when the details are worked out. “Who's commissioned it from you? Or are you making it to sell? Many would gladly buy it—I would, I believe, if you're willing.”

“No,” she says, with clear reluctance. “It's to be a gift.”

“Then it's a beautiful gift, and must be for someone you love a great deal, then.”

The seamstress hesitates. “It's in service of love, anyway,” she says, but she doesn't sound sure.

*

A paying commission has to come before her own work, so the seamstress finishes the sheets for the baron and sends them up to the palace and gets a very kind note and an overpayment in return before she goes back to the cloak, and finishes it in a matter of days.

This time, when he tries to take the cloak from her, she clutches it to her chest. “You're sure this is the way of it?”

“You don't trust your knight?” Puss asks. “If you don't, what kind of future is that?”

The seamstress looks like she'd very much like to cross her arms, and just scowls instead. “You've made your point, then. Don't think I don't understand you, because I do. Sew, work for position and recognition, and don't throw it away for a man who flirts with everyone in the marketplace.”

That isn't quite Puss's point, but it's a very good beginning. “What do you want to do with the cloak, then? Put it in your window to sell?”

“No, it should go to the baron.” She frowns down at it. “Only I can't sell it to him, because I told him it would be a gift, and I won't go back on my word.”

“Give it to him as a gift, then.”

“That's presumptuous and you know it. From his vassal, it would be a very pretty gift, but from a woman from his town? I'd be as good as demanding something from him.” This time, she puts the cloak carefully down on her table and does cross her arms. “I won't do it.”

“Then I will,” says Puss. “I'll take your cloak to the baron, no fuss and no bother.”

The seamstress frowns. “And what will you say while you do it? I told you, I've learned your lesson.”

“Am I a teacher? No. I'm a hunter, like any cat would tell you if they had the words to say it. I stay until my job is done.” He stuffs the cloak into his sack over her quiet objection. “And it's not done yet. I'll take this to the baron.”

*

The baron frowns to see him again, but his eyes widen when Puss shakes out the cloak, far more beautiful finished than it was on the seamstress's lap. “A gift from my mistress,” he says.

“You said she'd give the gift to her love, to secure his position with me. Did you go against her wishes?”

“No. She would rather have the cloak get to you than risk him having two fine cloaks and her having nothing.”

“Ah.” The baron shakes his head. “She's the butt of your joke, then. Unkind, when she's taken you in and fed you. I know no ill of her, and she did good work on my sheets.”

Even he isn't as smart as a cat, though at least he's defending the seamstress, so Puss doesn't much mind the foolishness. “She's nothing of the sort. I like her quite well, in fact. Well enough to not want to see her shackled to that cockerel for the best part of her life. It only put her out a few nights of sewing to learn that. Most would have made three cloaks and still sighed over his beautiful curls.”

The baron's mouth twitches. “Still, I can't just take this as a gift, when it doesn't do her any good. It's a beautiful piece, with the most valuable furs in the land. It should be her dowry.”

Humans can be very, very dim. “Yes,” says Puss. “It should.”

*

The baron goes riding through the town the very next day, wearing a beautiful cloak that has everyone whispering in awe, to see him looking like a king, and making even his handsomest knight, in his handsome cloak, look shabby in comparison.

He stops at the seamstress's door. “It is very beautiful,” he tells her.

She blushes at the cobblestones. “The furs make it beautiful.”

“You did. You won't, I suppose, let me pay for it?”

“I told you it was a gift, and I don't go back on my word.”

The baron nods. “I thank you, then, for a very kind gift. I won't forget it.”

*

The whole town, after that, wants work from the seamstress, making her pick and choose her projects so she doesn't stay up all night squinting by candlelight at her stitches. She's quite happy, and amassing a decent amount of money, and only asks Puss once why he's staying around, now that she's quite clearly successful.

If she thinks this is all he can do, she is underestimating him, but he's content to keep his own counsel and just hunt the town's rats and mice.

Especially as the baron stops by to see the seamstress whenever he comes to town. Whenever he comes with his knights, the last of them squirms to see the baron thank the seamstress for her gift, but everyone else smiles on them, all of them fond of their seamstress and their baron both. The baron tends to look at Puss askance when he spots him in the window, but he doesn't speak to him in public, so Puss just watches and waits.

He could leave now and it would all work out, he knows—the pieces are in motion—but he does like sticking around for the grand finale, even if there are no ogres to eat this time.

Pity. The knight would probably taste good, if he weren't too stupid to change shapes.

*

Of course, after everything, the knight is a traitor. One day, Puss wakes from a very nice nap by the embers of the fire to find a hue and cry in the town. The seamstress, her eyes red, tells him that the knight has overthrown the baron and imprisoned him in his rooms, and that no one knows what to do.

“We'll save him, of course,” says Puss.

She gives him a suspicious look. “You did this, didn't you?”

“I did no such thing,” says Puss, though he can't say he's upset about it, either. “I had every faith in you to work it all out yourself. But now your baron is in trouble, and the knight is too big for me to eat, so we're going to have to do this another way.”

They creep to the keep when dark falls, and Puss digs his claws in the stone and climbs up to the baron's room. The baron, upon seeing him, sighs. “I'm glad to see you, but you'd better tell me first that none of this was your doing.”

Puss hisses. “Nobody trusts a cat just looking out for the best for good people. No matter how rude you are, this was all his stupidity. Now, if you tie those nice strong bedsheets that she gave you together, you can get out that window, and I can take care of things quite easily from there.”

“I'd like to say that I'm capable of doing the job myself, and I am, but I suspect you won't let me deal with this no matter what I say.”

Puss considers that. “Probably,” he finally says. “Now, will you start climbing? She'll start worrying if you're too much longer.”

“Well,” says the baron. “I do hate to make her worry.”

*

The knight took the baron's cloak because it's nicer, which is just tacky, but Puss still deals with him easily enough and doesn't even stain the cloak. He has to cheat a little, since the knight can't turn into a mouse on his own, but nobody's watching, so he doesn't mind the cheating so much.

By morning, the baron is installed in his own keep again, with his loyal knights around him, very confused about the events of the night, and the seamstress in front of him, blushing fiercely. “You rescued me when no one else dared,” says the baron, “and months ago you gave me a gift that could quite easily be a dowry any woman could be proud of.”

“I wasn't the only one who rescued you,” says the seamstress, which is sweet but unhelpful of her.

The baron gives a wry look to the corner of the room where Puss is sitting, boots and sack stowed away so he just looks like an ordinary cat. He meows, just for the point of it. “I know,” he says, “but you're the only one of my rescuers that I would like to marry. What do you think?”

“I think I would be honored, my lord,” says the seamstress, and Puss is treated to the brightest smile he's ever seen on either of their faces.

*

“I don't suppose you'll be staying,” the seamstress says as she packs up the contents of her house.

Some cats are happy to doze by the fire, but Puss will never be one of them. “There's far too much to do for all of that,” he says, “but I do have one more gift for you.” He empties out his sack of another fine amount of ermine. “For your own cloak, and a better dowry.”

She looks down at the beautiful heap of white fur and shakes her head. “You're too clever for your own good, Puss, but I'm glad you came to town anyway. I'll look forward to hearing whatever stories make their way down the road.”

“And I,” says Puss, “will look forward to living them.”

He leaves then, off to see what else clearly needs his attention. Cats, after all, do hate to say goodbyes.


End file.
